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swiss cheese aka old pine

Started by Engineer, August 11, 2008, 09:47:58 AM

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Engineer

I finally fired up my mill for the first time in over a year, yesterday.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to saw, and how NOT fun it is to work logs onto a manual mill.   :(  Anyway, I've had a pile of pine sitting at the end of my driveway for over a year and I know that the pine bark borers had been at it.  I didn't realize just how much they'd been at it until I opened up a log and found that the whole thing looked like swiss cheese.  Unbelieveable.  Now, this was a small log, about 10" diameter, from near the top of the tree, but still, I had no idea that these critters were that hungry.  Usually they stay in the sapwood but this time they were all the way through the tree.  The bark was still on the log and it looked like someone has taken a 1/4" drill bit and drilled a hundred neat holes in the bark, and then once you got into the heartwood, the holes all went sideways and were oval.

Anyway, I got through ten logs, most small, 10-16" diameter, plus a couple cherry logs that I fished out of the woods that had been sitting on the ground for a couple years.  The cherry was knotty and ugly but sawed up nice, heartwood was still sound.  The board with the pith in it, from each log, split wide open like a shot after about ten minutes of being sawn.

Now I have my big log to cut, mostly 20-28" diameter stuff that I will have a really tough time getting onto the mill and moving them around.  It's all gonna be framing lumber.

ely

i have stood beside skid piles of pine, skid piles of pine the size of a house, and you have to concentrate to carry on a conversation with you partner, the noise from the pine bark beetles was so great.

what sort of set up do you have that makes it so hard to put logs on your mill. is it staionary mill or portable.

Engineer

I have an older Woodmizer LT 30.  I have to get logs onto the mill by brute force, since my tractor is small and I can't lift much over 700 lb with it.  The mill has a hand winch, so for up to about a 20" dia. log I do OK.  It's the bigger ones that are a struggle.  I have two freshly cut sugar maple logs that, according to the forum calculator, weigh over a ton each.  I have a hard time just rolling them around.  Even if I quarter them, I'm still dealing with a quarter that's 700 lb and 16" across and no longer round.  My dad and I were dead tired after only about three hours of fighting logs yesterday.

At some point, I'd like to have the mill stationary and be able to load logs onto a live deck so they can just roll easy onto the mill bed, but I'd need a machine that could pick the logs and carry them around.  At least a mid-sized skid-steer. 

ely

that was what i was about to suggest, sounds like you you have the " what i need " figgered out. now you should take those ideas to the appropriations committee. ;)

Chuck White

There was a log similar to what you describe in a pile I sawed for a customer.  It had been laying in the woods for 2 years.

Only, I think it was in worse shape.  That log had holes going in one side and out the other.

It had so many grubs in it I could turn off my blade luber.

Also, it had so many that my wife just couldn't take looking at it.
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

schmism

sounds like a small electric winch is in your near future.

get some forks for that CUT and have a buddy drive that tractor while you work the peavey
039 Stihl 010AV  NH TC33D FEL, with toys

solidwoods

Wormy white pine chest








Wormy white oak chest.
It had wire and a pull rope for a small engine in the log.
The log had stood dead for about 5yrs.




jim

Ret. US Army
Kasco II B Band mill
Woodworking since 83
I mill & kiln dry lumber, build custom furniture, artworks, flooring, etc.
If you mill, you'll be interested in some of my work in one way or another.
We ship from our showroom.
N. Central TN.

woodmills1

hopefully here is an older picture of my wormy denim pine coffee table


James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

MrMoo

Well at least the beetles are helping you and making the logs lighter for you  :D

Engineer

Very Nice, Jim.

Most of the second floor, floors in my house look like that.  I had a lot of wormy white pine left over from cutting the timbers for my frame, and what was left over was stacked and stickered for a couple years outside, then we kiln-dried it and it all looks like that.  Many shades of gray and chocolate brown and a few wormholes.

This log, however, was unusual because of all the holes through and through the log.  It looks like the borers concentrated on that one because almost all the other logs in the pile are nearly untouched, or only have a dozen or so holes at most.

Those pictures give me some inspiration to use some of the stuff I've been feeding to the wood boiler.   ::)

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